Fang's Heart 🐉 | Rayaari

Chapter Eight: Erebus's Descendant

"Can you remember
who you were,
before the world
told you who you
should be?"

🐲

He never favors engrossment. He detests prying eyes and wild tatters. That's why he moves during the night, where things are still. Hinge told him he hunts like a black lion, with stealth but an intent to kill. Others identify him as an electric viper, with three expedients to slaughter his target. One, he suffocates them. Two, he plunges his poisonous fangs into their flesh, weakening their systems. Finally, he annihilates.

For him, he could not care less. He is no massive beast nor is he a scaly serpent. He is simply a man, with a slimming forbearance, who gets the job done.

Beneath his hood, he casts a fleeting glance around the teeming thoroughfare and his eyes caught a two-storey establishment. It was nothing grand, just enough to provide travelers and merchants the succor they need.

Dao surveys the cramped and small premises with a scrutinizing gaze before opening the wooden hatch that seems to be too narrow for his big stature. He closes the door behind him, and heads to the reception desk. He ducks his head in the process as the florescent bulb nearly collided with his forehead.

"Choup reap sur! 'Elcome to our humble inn. Name's Misha. Room 'or one, sweetie?" A woman in her late-forties chirps in one breath, accent thick with the Southern Tail drawl.

Dao shakes his head. "I'm not here to stay, I'm here to ask some questions."

Misha pauses, scanning the man from head to foot. Or, at least, from his torso to his head. From the looks of it, he awfully ventures. A lot.

"Asked 'er away." She answers hesitantly, clasping her hands.

Dao leans over the counter, his arm supporting most of his weight. He took a good sweep around the lobby and back at the suspicious woman.

"Were there two females who happened to pass by here? Looks wealthy, one of status." He provides.

"We have a few visitors, yes. But mostly ordinary looking people, really. Not too gallant."

Dao clicks his tongue. "Do you know their names?"

Misha shakes her head, frowning. "I apologize, sweetness, but that's not gon' be possible. It's building policy to not share information with strangers."

Dao's jaw tensed and resorted to a more rational tactic. He plucks out a small sack of Jade from his pocket and poured the contents on the counter. Once emptied, he discards the cloth. Some of the pieces of the emerald currency tumbles down to the carpeted floor and Misha's eyes trails after it uneasily.

"I heard workers in this part of town receive below the minimum wages. Barely even feeding their own families." He comments.

The elder woman gulps and sighs, defeated to his bribery. She reached for the inn's logbook and turn to the recent page where guests write their names.

"Time?"

"Five days ago, specifically during evening or past midnight." Dao answers.